32 MAY 4-, 1'2.' A R.E-POR. TE-R. AT LAR.GE- {k , . ";':: Ji.I 'i ;J 1,; , '; ( .......,::"::::::::%',:.,<.,.,.,.' '1$ '," ,{, :, ,, ->>,=*,':, ,,11 j '-...- " .C' "" 'i 1,! ';'" \. - t:}',:..&;;;;: :',:! \ H t:::' 'J::;:; ," , > , ' " .:] , l , :: , : , ';::, ì-:-::: v., ":::::- 'ttr ::'---"::': ':" '_:',: - : : 'wt:: - * , '\\ . <0" . ", ,. <: .J " ,', .::'" .I , ,0:'" ,\"0. '. > , " ,. '< . .,." . J · ; . H, > ;" r. t',:3 :;-,.' :,,'{f';' ;';>> 1 > '.; . .',' ,;f '. ''; ? ,H .' : ':' :i:'?: ,,::,:::'J.2, ; ..:: ,/: :', "'.<: : ":, " ;5 ', , '\ /' / .: I ;:::;;:,, < :,: \ \ ^'.. !íIi' .,.,.. \ I *' "'" '< . ð .*'H<i W E have been reading a lot lately (or maybe y'Ou have been reading it-I personally don't get much beyond the first four words) about Broadway moving to Hollywood. With all the theatrical stars, scenic artists, directors, and com- posers who are signing up with the talking movies, there is hardly a press- story in the moving-picture sections which does not begin: "Soon Holly- wood Boulevard will look like Broad- way." This can be believed only by those who have never seen Hollywood Boulevard. For the fact is that you could put Joe Frisco on every corner of Holly- wood Boulevard, Ethel Barrymore in every drawing-room of Beverly Hills, and a Harry Richman Club in every " Drive-Yourself" garage between Los Angeles and Santa Monica and the place would still be Hollywood. I am not saying that Broadway is better than Hollywood Boulevard (I mIght say so, if plied with liquor, but it has nothing to do with this thesis). I am simply saying that all this talk about Holly- wood becoming even an approximation I \ ;{f k('::.: ' , ."""/:;::,41(:': /' AT THE COR.NER. OF 42.ND ST. AND HOLLYWOOD ß'V'D. of Broadway, regardless of the number of Broadwayites who migrate there, is like saying that by putting four or eight or twelve polar bears in the Central Park Zoo you move the North Pole down to Sixty-second Street. I N the first place, there is Hollywood itself. Contrary to popular concep- tion, Hollywood is essentially a small- town health-resort. Except on Saturday nights, there is no place to go after midnight but Henry's, whichîs a \Vest Coast company of Reuben's. There may be parties in private houses, but they are genteel affairs which break up at eleven-thirty in perfect order, owing to the fact that the host or hostess and most of the guests have to be on location in Arizona at nine the next morning. Roscoe Arbuckle has a night club in Los Angeles which makes a brave gesture on Sunday nights but the illusion of whoopee IS nominal and the Friday night soirées de gala at the Cocoanut Grove correspond Llì (( 1" Izis rug is fron"t our previous apart1J ent-it would have been a shame to cut it." roughly to a "hop" which the Hotel Gotham might put on if a convention of typographical experts should ever as- semble there (except that the band is as good as the best you ever heard). There is an exclusive weekly "May- fair" at the Los Angeles Biltmore at which the guests are with difficulty restrained from dancing the minuet. Now this is very bucolic and charm- ing and excellent for the gland secre- tions, but there will have to be extensive alterations made before it resembles Broadway. You will find many sincere residents who claim that they never want to see Broadway again, but that is because au fond they are really anti-Broadway and like the simple life. (i\nd that certaInly is no knock. Look at Thoreau, a great guy. ) B UT the chief reason that Holly- wood can never resemble Broad- way is neither because most of its eating-places are called The Brown Derby nor because the only place to go after midnight is one delicatessen or the house of a friend who has already gone to bed. It is the strange chemi- cal change which comes over New Yorkers, when they get there. Holly- wood could take on by accretion all the men-about-town from Columbus Circle to Forty-second Street, and they would be the ones to change, not Hollywood. For you can't be a man-about-town without a town to be about in, and Hollywood is not a town but a way- side camp of temporary shacks inhabited for the most part by people who are waiting to see if their options are going to be taken up at the end of six months. A lot of them haven't even unpacked yet, and if they are wise they won't. Of two dozen stage stars who have been announced as having deserted the legitimate stage for the talking pictures, an even twenty will be back in New York in time to take part in Fall pro- ductions on Broadway. No wonder that the theatrical managers are un- moved by the ominous threats of the movie mag-nates to steal all their stars. \...) They could cast all of their 1929-30 shows right now with people who have been to Hollywood and returned (or who have been announced as going but have never gone), each one muttering vows never to sign a lllovie contract again. This sort of thing tends to make a community jittery. On Broad- way when you are out of a job at least